Pantry reference · Flour, yeast, salt & water

The Baker’s Shelf

What’s really in the bag — and how to swap, blend and convert what you’ve got. 38 flours from 10 brands, every number linked to where it came from.

  • 29 with a mill’s own protein spec
  • 9 estimated from the label
  • Checked Sep 30, 2026

All-purposeeveryday white flour
Bread flourwhite flour for yeasted loaves
Whole wheatred and white whole wheat
Strong & high-glutenbagels, NY pizza, blending
Italian & pizza00, Type 0, Italian-style
Spelt, einkorn & durumother wheats
Ryelight to whole rye
12.7%
Mill’s published protein Estimated from the nutrition label Published range The ruler reads protein, 6–16%. Each sack’s peg points to its exact spot — drag the line to any protein.

Not on the shelf: Gold Medal, Hodgson Mill, Anson Mills, Great River Milling, Castle Valley Mill — for these we found neither a published protein spec nor a nutrition label we could check. Flours shown with dashed sacks have no spec; their figure comes from the label, which is only a rough guide.

King Arthur

Unbleached Bread Flour

Bread flour

12.7%

protein · the mill’s spec

Mill’s spec What the label suggests

Nutrition panel: 4 g protein per 30 g serving → 11.7–15.0% once you allow for rounding. The spec fits.

Best for
Yeast breads, pizza, rolls
Malted
Yes, malted barley
Bleached
No

The package calls this “gluten-forming protein”.

Closest white flours by protein

Same protein isn’t the same flour — wheat, milling and malt all change how dough behaves.

Source: kingarthurbaking.com · checked Sep 30, 2026 · label rounding: 21 CFR 101.9(c)(7)

Blend bench

Hit a protein target

Recipe wants bread flour and you’ve got all-purpose? Work out how much vital wheat gluten — or how much of a second flour — gets you there.

Aim for

Using

Swap 7.9 g of your flour for vital wheat gluten

7.3 g–8.6 g depending on the gluten (it’s 70–80% protein) — about 2¾ tsp.

11.7% → 12.7% with gluten at 75%

A starting point — how far to trust it

The arithmetic is exact, but only as good as the protein figures going in. Two flours with the same number can still behave differently, so start here and watch the dough. Gluten range: Bob’s Red Mill: 70–80% (King Arthur’s and Anthony’s panels work out to about 78% and 80%).

Conversions

When the recipe and the pantry disagree

Yeast swap

Instant, active dry and fresh, by weight and by spoon.

  • Instantalso “rapid rise”, “bread machine”
    7 g = 2¼ tsp
    you have
  • Active drygranules
    7 g ≈ 2¼ tsp

    Fleischmann’s says to use 25% more active dry when it replaces RapidRise: 8.8 g.

  • Freshcake or compressed
    21 g ≈ 1¼ cakes (0.6 oz)

    Fleischmann’s says one 0.6-oz cake = one dry packet. That’s King Arthur’s ratio for active dry (17 g × 0.4 = 6.8 g, about a 7 g packet); instant is stronger (0.33 × fresh), so one packet of instant ≈ 1¼ cakes.

Instant ↔ active dry is 1:1 (Red Star; King Arthur’s home-baking guide). Fresh uses King Arthur’s professional guideline — active dry = 0.4 × fresh, instant = 0.33 × fresh — so those two rows won’t match each other exactly. One 7 g packet is 2¼ teaspoons.

Cups to grams

King Arthur’s chart, both directions.

Chart: 1 cup = 120 g.

Measure flour by fluffing, spooning and levelling — that’s how the 120 g cup is measured. Scooped straight from the bag, a cup of all-purpose can hold up to 160 g. King Arthur

Eggs 1 large = 50 g · yolk 14 g · white 30–35 g

Source: King Arthur ingredient weight chart. Its 227 g cup of water is King Arthur’s recipe convention; if a recipe gives its own weights, use those.

Same spoon, different salt

A teaspoon of one salt can weigh twice another.

Recipe says of

That’s 5.3–6.0 g of salt — weigh it and the brand stops mattering.

  • Maldon flakes 2¼–2⅝ tsp
  • Diamond Crystal kosher 2 tsp
  • Morton kosher 1–1¼ tsp
  • Morton fine sea salt 1–1⅛ tsp
  • Morton table salt ⅞–1 tsp

Where sources measured different weights (Diamond Crystal: 8 g per tablespoon at King Arthur, 9 g at Serious Eats; Morton kosher 16 g vs 14 g), the answer is a range, shown as the lighter end of the bar. Sources: Serious Eats, King Arthur, Morton.

Your water

Most drinking water bakes fine. Two things worth knowing.

120 ppm

Right in the sweet spot. King Arthur’s best range for bread.

Bands from King Arthur’s baking reference (soft under 50, best 100–150, hard over 200 ppm; 1 grain per gallon ≈ 17.1 ppm). The USGS uses different names for the same numbers — 121–180 mg/L is “hard” there — so don’t be alarmed by the label on your report.

My tap water is treated with

Either way it’s safe to drink and cook with — the US EPA says so for chloraminated water that meets standards. This is about starter behavior, not safety.

Looking for the water-temperature calculator or hydration math? They live in the Baker’s Bench, built into every formula. Timing a starter? Use the Starter Clock.

How to read a flour’s protein number

Protein is the quickest way to compare flours: more of it usually means more gluten, a stronger dough and a chewier crumb. But the number on a mill’s spec sheet and the one you can work out from the nutrition label often disagree, and it helps to know why.

The label is rounded to the gram

US nutrition labels round protein to the nearest gram per serving. On a 30 g serving, “4 g” can mean anything from 3.5 to 4.49 g — somewhere between about 11.7% and 15%. That’s why the Shelf shows label-only flours as a range rather than a single figure, and why a label can’t settle the difference between an 11.7% and a 12.7% flour.

Mills measure differently

Where a mill publishes its own figure, the Shelf uses that — but mills don’t always say whether it’s total protein, “gluten-forming” protein, or measured at a fixed moisture. When a spec falls outside what the label allows, the Shelf flags it rather than picking a winner. Ranges (like Bob’s Red Mill’s 12–14%) are the mill’s own.

Protein isn’t everything

Two flours with the same protein can behave differently: the wheat, how finely it’s milled, and whether it’s malted all matter. Rye is the extreme case — it has very little gluten, so its protein figure says little about structure. Use the numbers to narrow a choice, then trust the dough.

Building a whole formula? The Baker’s Bench handles hydration, levain and water temperature. For named-product background, see the bread flour protein chart and bread flour substitutes.